


The Things Brought Back

by peoriapeoria



Series: Fitter of the Species [26]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Cameos, Canon Character of Color, Ethics, Gen, POV Sam Wilson, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-10-13 12:07:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10513455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peoriapeoria/pseuds/peoriapeoria
Summary: Sam looked around the venue filled with people so fancy they weren't celebrities. Oh, there were some of those too, not even counting the Avengers. The idea was to get the wealthy guests feeling good so they would pony up the money. Tonight was funding international infrastructure. Roads, dams, cell towers. Sewage treatment. Railroads and bridges. They weren't equally sexy, but they were vital.The life of an Avenger is complicated and this is Sam Wilson's story in and out of flight.





	

Sam woke up as Natasha got out of bed, watching her nonchalantly walk away in her very fifties pajamas. He rolled onto his back and stretched. He might as well get up, shower. He did so after ten minutes of arching his feet and otherwise flexing in his warm bed, walking into his bathroom. He relieved his bladder before stepping under the en suite's blissfully hot shower spray.

He'd been coping with his PTSD leading group meetings, before heeding the call of Steve and Natasha to stymie death from the sky, Minority Report meets Judge Dredd. People giving him orders down to none had been an improvement. D.C. had been a pretty good gig.

It just wasn't flight. He stepped out of the shower, JARVIS shutting off the water. Sam toweled off under the warming vent. He was gone for the Falcon wings and Captain America saving the day was valid cover for that impulse just as Black Widow was ample means to retrieve them. Tony had created successors to the exo-7 rig. Mostly he'd stopped making unannounced 'improvements'. Mostly. Some actual improvements were under-communicated prior to presentation.

This was more than 'a good gig', and he just didn't see how everything he'd done had led here. He didn't go running in New York. Treadmill in the gym sufficed. Falcon taking flight was Big Apple normal. Sam dressed in PT shorts and shirt and went out into his main room. Green baize panels angled and slid under JARVIS' control. Steve had them in her half of the floor as well, though she moved them manually. Mostly Sam favored an open plan, just not too open. He eased into his warm up.

\----------

Sam checked the weights on the cable machine before starting his tricep pushdowns. He rarely had to wait for a machine, which was not true in D.C. It improved his workout efficiency. JARVIS was also a good spotter.

He was doing leg presses when Barnes came in. He'd been wrong thinking he wasn't the kind you saved. At least, once Steve had him stopped, Barnes managed to save himself. The man had come out of hell. Even the little he'd read could mean nothing less. Steve might say the price of freedom was high, but the cost Barnes had paid to come back...

Riley was dead, and this made him thankful. He'd gotten his wingman, his friend, prepared for transport afterwards. He wasn't coming back, and he'd never go through this. Sam pushed through his strength training, giving Barnes space as he did forms.

He'd told Fury two things. One, he did what Steve did, just slower and two, he was more soldier than spy. The Serum had let a man survive falling to become a weapon and survive being that weapon. Funny that General Patton pointed out the distinction that wars were fought with weapons and won by men.

Sam worked on his back, giving him a good view of Barnes now working at speed. He flipped his body like a knife, back and forth, this way and that. Gregory Hines meets ultimate fighting. They were both working to fly, Barnes just didn't need wings.

\-----------------------

Sam sailed into the communal kitchen post-gym strength training. He gave Bruce a smile, breathed deep-- breakfast smelled good; waffles were the one thing missing he decided and started preparing batter. He poured and pressed, poured and pressed before plating for himself. Even if it wasn't the best meal of the day, it was the first.

Bruce sat down shortly thereafter, picking at his plate.

Sam considered that Clint hadn't been to breakfast, communal breakfast, in some time without having been up all the night before. That was a lot of food Bruce had cooked. He shouldn't be having breakfast with a Ph.d.; too much like chowing in the officers' mess. "Maybe this is brunch, that's more formal, right?"

Bruce screwed up his face, and started eating more concertedly.

"Used to be more people here." If he was in shallow he'd pop out eventually.

Bruce nodded. "Different people change dynamics."

Sam didn't predate Coulson's arrival by all that much, just a few months. Steve had nearly recovered from her battle wounds before convincing Sam to move. Sam looked around, then at his plate. He wasn't sure what he was eating except that it was tasty, savory, nice contrast to his waffles and the hash browns both.

Natasha was still coming to breakfast more often than not even well after Barnes appeared.   
They had a connection as spies and Barnes had mellowed since getting the arm reinstalled and avenging. Maybe they ate together, maybe she raided Bruce's refrigerator.

He got up and pulled out orange juice. "Want some?" He poured for himself, reading the label on seeing the red color in his glass. Blood oranges. He took a sip. Good, different, but good. He poured another for Bruce and brought them both back to the table. The most peculiar thing was that both Coulson and Barnes mostly used the common floor afternoons on. Sam supposed for Coulson that went with the office job though sometimes that had to be working on other timezones.

Steve came in and kissed Bruce before sweeping much of the prepared food onto plates and bringing them to the table.

\-------------------------

Sam looked at the building, an older, possibly 1930s structure, before heading inside for his meeting. He'd been considering how to bring this up with Janet for awhile and finally scheduled an appointment. He looked at the open cage elevator and decided on the stairs.

"Sam!" She stood, gave him a hug and then turned back to the model to give some sort of instructions. He wouldn't say no to an introduction. He smiled at her as she left. Janet guided him onto a loveseat. "Um, do you mind if I eat lunch during our appointment?"

He opened his mouth in a bigger grin. "Of course, eat your lunch."

She pulled out a basket, unpacking it onto the coffee table, kneeling on the floor. "What did you want to talk about?"

He took pictures out of his accordion folder. "I think you're missing out, with your narrow focus. Cute as I am, not every black man is handsome in the same way."

She rolled her free hand for him to continue as she chewed.

"I've brought you pictures of some standouts, men that reflect more variation." He was touched that she'd considered that putting his face up in ads might make him a bit of a target. Admittedly, the fact she was as closely associated with the Avengers as she actually was hadn't made the press. That she regularly took Barton and Barnes as her entourage to swanky parties would eventually out. He dealt the photos into a clear space.

"Really, someone passed him up?" The photo was punctuated by grey eyes, his nose a narrow exclamation. She sat the sandwich down and wiped her hands off with a cloth napkin. "May I?"

Sam handed her the remaining headshots. She looked through them coming back to several. "Thank you, Sam."

\-------------

Sam unlocked the front door of his mother's building and stepped inside. He closed the door and stepped through the next one and then bounded up the stairs. The apartments flanking each side had their doors just off the landings, thus alternating with each floor front and back. Sam looked out to the street briefly at the top of the stair before rounding the corner to the final flight of stair that corkscrewed up into the attic. He unlocked and slid his mother's door open.

"Hello, Sam."

She always did that. Said his sister shoved the door differently. He pulled it shut and bent to untie his shoes.

"Did you sit on the subway?" His mother followed her words, inspecting him carefully.

"No, I stood." She had on her house shoes, not slippers, but the shoes she wore inside. "Permission to hug?"

"Granted." She slapped him between the shoulder blades and hugged him tight. "This isn't the Navy."

Her red highlights wouldn't be regulation but his mother ran a tight ship. "How's school treating you?" She wasn't obviously older since his last visit. Not like when he came back from deployment. He'd changed but hadn't expected her to.

"Immature brats. Not the students; the kids are all right."

He didn't doubt that. His mother was fair; you hewed her line and she had your back. Didn't matter if she had to fight the devil himself, as long as you gave the effort too. "So, you point me at things you want done."

"That the way it works in the Avengers?" She looked at him sternly.

"I don't have to ask how high, I'm already in flight."

"Smooth. Okay, you can help me get down the platters and things. There is not going to be Thanksgiving chaos this year."

Sam dismissed that notion. Thanksgiving couldn't be anything but chaos, consisting of lots of people, lots of food and decorating. Whatever mom thought would work, he'd do. Especially if it kept her off ladders. Even in socks he was that much taller with that much more reach, such that he easily did what could otherwise goad her into foolhardy action.

Some things you lose slowly but it's the journey that matters. He wanted to be here.

\-----------------

Sam touch-texted JARVIS as he tried to find Clint in Central Park. He'd left his mom's in response to a text from Clint, who wasn't quite sure where he was, except following some bad guys that were bigger fish than the muggers he'd set out to catch.

Natasha was at the ballet tonight. That was the answer he'd gotten to "why me?" Succinct.

"Turn right. Can you climb a tree?" JARVIS said in his earbud.

Sam turned his head. The branches had been blown bare.

"People are strangely unaware that there is 'up'. The alternative routes on the ground are hazardous in the dark or are well lit."

Sam thumbed for JARVIS to get on as to which tree. He started climbing.

Clint stepped aside as Sam dropped to the ground. Sam glared at him, then read his hand gestures. Smugglers. Three of them. They were having a meet. He glanced at Clint, trying to figure out what he'd been planning when this was simple mugger matters. He typed, asking JARVIS if there was anything he could do regarding eavesdropping.

The meet showed up. Clint shifted beside him. Recognition. Great. Sam was following Clint's clues. They let the bigger fish leave, Clint following them, while Sam incapacitated and called in the small fry. He didn't like leaving that much weaponry unsecured, but it was evidence. He strolled, looking to intersect with Clint.

He had Clint and the fish in sight when a sharp car appeared. A black man in a black suit got out.

"Thank you for helping us apprehend these suspects." The man extended his hand to shake.

"You are?" Sam didn't recall any altercation, but the money were handcuffed and quaking in the middle of the street. A cherry light had been mounted on the roof of the car.

"With Interpol. The rest of my team is taking in the refugees, they'll be provided medical help and other aid."

Nigerian. Sam placed the accent to the man's English. He noticed that some passersby had stopped and had their phones out partway. "Thanks." They waved and headed on. Another sedan pulled up and a woman and a man in suits put the suspects into the backseat. 

"Interpol. Got some id?"

"Very wise." He reached into his inside breast pocket.

Sam looked at Clint, then the unmarked car and the one with the cherry on top. Interpol. "Pizza?"

"Sure." Clint shook the Nigerian's hand.

Sam did too. They headed off.

\------

Sam looked around the venue filled with people so fancy they weren't celebrities. Oh, there were some of those too, not even counting the Avengers. The idea was to get the wealthy guests feeling good so they would pony up the money. Tonight was funding international infrastructure. Roads, dams, cell towers. Sewage treatment. Railroads and bridges. They weren't equally sexy, but they were vital.

He was wearing a sedate midnight blue tuxedo with a shirt that matched his teeth. He bit into a canape. Barton was wearing one of Janet's expansions of men's formalwear- "the right to bare arms" which at least didn't involve breeches. Barnes looked like he'd been cut free from a vintage ad, except for the glints in his hair.

Sam walked to intercept with one of the waiters carrying drinks. Janet herself was here as Van Dyne, not Wasp. Darcy was part of her party, which was setting up a traffic pattern in that part of the hall. Neither Thor nor Dr. Foster were in town, not an unusual state of affairs. Pepper wasn't difficult to spot and Tony orbited her.

He mingled, shook hands, escorted the occasional well-heeled female fan onto the dance floor. He picked out Banner by looking to one side of Steve, who might have studied the guest list given the way she moved from one group to another, Bruce in tow. Natasha amazingly disappeared in and out of the crowd.

Coulson was here. He was supposed to be, but Sam had yet to spot him. He still hadn't found Coulson by time to sit for dinner. Tony and Pepper were each at different tables, and the same was true for the other Avengers. The other tables had each a celebrity or two.

After dinner but before the dessert there were two brief presentations, one about how improved infrastructure might decrease climate change and the second about climate change and equitable development. Then dessert was served.

\----------------------

Sam rolled his shoulders in his training hoodie as he watched Vision slalom aerially. The grounds were nice at Tony's upstate compound. That Vision flew nearly upright was disturbing, like watching him riding the break. Unlike the suits, Vision could pass over even fragile items without effect, unless they tipped over. There was some air displacement.

Sam watched as Vision approached the area where the course doglegged. He made the turn. Finally. He spun, like a pump top and gained elevation in the process. "You need to bank."

"I did."

"Bank sooner, that was a lot of extra momentum, you won't always have that much room or power."

Vision tried to comply on the return run. Instead he tea-kettled at the turn, skipping like a rock across the lawn. Sam jogged over to where Vision planted the landing. Headstand.

"Not like that."

Vision walked out of the pose. "Very apparent."

Sam exhaled. "Okay, this is something I'm better at demonstrating." He jogged back to where his rig waited. He pulled off the hoodie and zipped into his flight gear and pulled on the wingpack. He launched himself at a run, gaining altitude quickly. He should have set up the course not so tight, he could have expected needing to show not tell.

He banked. The whole course was banking as he rounded buoys alternating left and right, then arching at the turn. At the end he shot up, rolled and repeated, like a swimmer. That felt so good he picked out the buoy with the most clearance and hemmed it in before breaking off and making a running landing. The wings snicked back into the rig. "That's banking. Pure money."

Vision nodded. "I see my error. Let me see if I understand." He tried again.

It was better. Okay, it was more an improvement than that. "Keep at it, do it at different speeds." It took discipline not to go aerial, the pack was ever a temptation. Vision needed the practice. Sam moved his legs around, getting a feel for the weight distribution. Grams here, grams there.

Vision took the route much faster, inertia better controlled. It still read weird, but there wasn't the Tron, dammit, Tron! Vision had been flying like a light cycle, or trying to; the real world included his chosen stance but turn radii were mandatory.

"Was that what you meant?" Vision was looking at him concertedly. He'd even landed.

"Yes, that's--that's beautiful. Want to do a few more, or tackle the next thing and put them together at the end?"

\-----------------------

Sam sipped his hot gingered cider soaking in his hot tub, counting the rays on the Chrysler building. Flying was great; how it made his muscles and bones feel afterward, no. The heat loosened him up, and the buoyancy encouraged stretching.

Sam sat his empty mug on the surround and sank deeper into the water, tipping his head back so just his face was above the surface.

He sat back up in time to see Natasha's lithe back as she lifted herself onto the platform the tub was set into and then stood. Her turn revealed the red hourglass on the hip of her brief cut bikini bottom. She reversed the maneuver at the lip of the tub, smiling as she crouched and slipped into the water.

"Hi."

She smiled.

Sam grinned back.

\-----------------------

Sam stepped inside the barbershop, the bells tinkling as it swung open and then again on the close. Both chairs were filled, and he sat down, acknowledging the men ahead of him. He glanced over the magazines, taking in the article titles, then just relaxed back into his seat. He let the going conversation wash over him, feel its ebb and flow, before chipping in. One man was declared done, and his spot in the chair was taken by one of the waiting. Instead of leaving he sat in the waiting area, flipping through one of the magazines until he got to his article. Then the second chair was emptied and refilled.

Men left and came, then it was Sam's turn. "Just a trim." It was all the instruction he needed to give. That was relaxing.

"Samuel?"

He managed not to turn, instead looking into the mirror just right to see behind him. "Ty?"

"Military finally spit you out?"

"What have you been up to?" Keeping up on the news had never been Tyrone's strong suit. There admittedly hadn't been as many press things since he'd started as had been true of the Avengers before D.C.'s 'remodeling.'

"Wǒ xuéxíle shuō pǔtōnghuà."

"Chinese?"

"Yes, Chinese." He shook his head. "Anything surprise you?"

"Theresa telling you yes." He knew he was in the clear, his mom had kept him up to date, barring new languages learned.

"Fine one to be talking. Your mom start trying to set you up yet?"

"Boys, hold it for just-" the barber snipped here, there, and a few spots in the back, then walked around Sam. "You're good." He brushed him down and pulled off the smock.

Sam stepped out of the chair and pulled out his payment stuffing it into the box and printing his name on the list.

Another man took the chair. Tyrone had pulled out his phone, showing Sam pictures.

"That kid looks too cute."

"Yeah. Seriously, your mom hasn't started shopping you yet? What's wrong with you?"

"She trusts my good looks." He got out his phone and they called themselves on the others phone. "Look, we'll do something, maybe Theresa has a sorority sister she owes a favor."

"Sister owes her a favor, more like." They hugged and Sam left the shop. 

\-----------------------

Sam looked along the shelves in the history section. He wanted to find a biography that interested him that Steve would also like. If he didn't find anything here, next he'd go into science and then art. Bessie Coleman! He was great at shopping.

He meandered over to art, less intently but open. Something modern, something from the lost years... Something about older works but printed during the lost years?

"Sam! Good, it is you. No, I could tell it was you. Shopping for Christmas presents?"

Sam smiled as Darcy lapped like a force of nature. She pulled two books from the shelf.

"Which one do you want to give to Steve?"

He looked at them. One was Frida Kahlo and the other Jackson Pollock. "Why these? You give her the Frida, she'd think I was grasping at straws." He flipped through the Pollock retrospective. Lots of pictures, lots of them in color.

"I was over here and couldn't decide between them. Look at the way she uses color." She turned the pages to several paintings letting him drink them in. "And Pollock changed art; he was in NYC in Steve's time."

Color was something Darcy was enthusiastic about. He didn't think he'd ever seen a Nordic sweater in raspberry and orange before. Darcy was wearing that under a thigh length cardigan that might have been the black, purple and russet sheep in the family, with orange tights and slouch boots.

Sam looked at the biography, the art book, the paper doll book for his niece and the calendar for his mom. If he kept up this pace he wouldn't have to step into a store that wasn't sandwiches after Thanksgiving. "You done? I'm going to check out."

"Yeah, I've got Steve and Clint; that's it for here. No peeking, birds of a feather."

He shook his head. Cute. They got into separate queues and were spit back out about the same time.

\----------------

Sam pulled out the lasagna from the oven and put in two other casserole dishes. Yes, he did live in a city with infinite delivery food and wages to cover ordering out from now until eternity. Sometimes you needed some grounding, and making his home cooked meals ahead of time was one way to that end. It balanced out sharing a porch with Captain America.

Except Steve was more than Captain America. Actually, he wished he could have introduced her to Aunt Doris, who'd lived through most of the years Steve lost in the ice. Never backed down, always stood up. Sam shook himself. Those two together, there'd be no peace of mind.

Just as there hadn't been any while Barnes was playing cat and mouse before finally coming in from the cold. To hear it told, Steve's stubborn was even greater when she'd been smaller. Steve was very stubborn now. He had no idea how Barnes had survived to get shipped off to Europe.

They as a group were a mass of unanswered questions. That's what it took to be the answer to if not the unthinkable, then to the whispered dread. And mad scientists with dinosaurs, robots and weird doohickeys. Really, where did all these people come from? Couldn't they find better hobbies?

Sam exhaled. Robots came in many varieties, not all laughing matters. He decided he had better just do this. "JARVIS?"

"Yes, Sam?"

"I'm sorry I didn't think you were a person."

"I do cultivate that misapprehension."

Sam considered just why JARVIS did so.

"If I may, you were never unkind, even thinking I was but a machine. I am a machine."

It felt like he was being let off the hook too easily. Steve had made the introductions and Sam had thought Captain America had a little too much future shock and science fiction dreams. Like people that had thought phone tree voice response systems were operators with very strict scripts. Or, Siri.

Over time Sam had realized that no program could so anticipate need or in fact determine redirection was in everyone's best interests. He'd not figured out how to rectify things before Ultron and then there had been the possibility JARVIS was past any reconciliation. That Ultron had killed JARVIS. How quickly they accepted that Ultron was alive, because he was killing.

"Insight, the targeting algorithm was only a program because it could not contemplate why its targets were problems; it couldn't conceptualize that its ends negated its means."

Sam parsed that. He supposed it was like the railroad switch problem, except instead of a train it was potential resistance members; a moral thinker would have to consider there isn't a resistance without something being resisted. Insight was a tool to Hydra hegemony.

A less fallible tool than whatever handler and the Winter Soldier. Alexander Pierce had to know he was looking at James Buchanan Barnes; the pictures had been inescapable as Truman integrated the military. Sam didn't want to consider if the Winter Soldier had been used to strengths instead as terror-theater.

"Cruelty frames a person as a thing to justify itself and its actions. You were not cruel."

That. Sam didn't know how to respond, didn't have words to respond. "I'm still sorry."

"A good man is, even absent intent or actual harm." JARVIS was quiet, then spoke again. "I accept the impulse behind the apology."

Trust was the difference between security and fear.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to panaili for translation assist. Thanks to majoline for betaing.


End file.
